I had the opportunity to interview Jaciel, YMLA’s highest scorer ever on the SAT(1440) and one of the national merit semifinalists (for those that don’t know, that means he got a TON of scholarship money, so get studying). Jaciel for the most part, speaks for himself. He’s a brilliant mathematican and linguist, speaks 2 languages, plays the flute, and maintains a job at Little Caesars. At first, I wanted to get into what makes Jaciel tick, or who the “real” Jaciel is if you will, but when he realized where I was going with it, he asked I not make him cringe. So instead we talked about his life up to this point, and I’ve taken 2 wild stories from his childhood and shared them here.

Story 1: The Cactus Contest

While Jaciel was still in elementary school, his father often repaired cars for people, including one time his classmates dad. As a result the boy came over to Jaciels home and the two naturally began looking for something fun to do, but with not alot to do the mind wanders. Then, one of them got a very…interesting idea. In what I can only describe as a pin cushion endurance challenge, the pair found a cactus on the property and began sticking the needles in their cheeks. The idea was that whoever could handle the most in their face would be the winner. I asked Jaciel how that felt, and he said while it did hurt at first, it wasn’t very noticeable after a while. Regardless of whether or not they were, or even how they were having fun doing that, Jaciels grandmother found them, and the sight of her grandchild with a bunch of needles in his face promptly led to a bit of a blow up. That kid never came over again.

Story 2: The Camping Trip

Did you know that Jaciel wasn’t actually born here in Texas? He’s from Phoenix, Arizona and moved here when he was 5, but how he got here, is a trip, literally! His father took the family on a camping trip, but as you can imagine in a place as hot and dry as Phoenix they had to drive quite a bit to find a good camping spot. So they went east, then went east some more, then while in New Mexico, his father decided they should just visit family all the way in Fort Worth, Texas. For most of us, while it would be a long and tiring trip, it wouldn’t be outright difficult with the power of GPS and addresses. The Rodartes[fact check] however, did not have such liberties. Wielding a paper map and the word dale they embarked on a trip across the desert, successfully finding their way to where you can find them today…or they would have if they actually remembered the address. The word dale I was referring to was the last part of the street name of their relatives address. In the scenario that anyone reading this is not from America or familiar with english names, there are ALOT of dales. Glendale, Carbondale, Allendale, Dale City, Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Jr, etc. So, they just drove down every something-dale street, and with an extreme level of luck, were flagged down by Jaciel’s uncle. The family was meant to stay for a few days, but that quickly turned into searching for a home, and soon Jaciels dad drove back to Phoenix to retrieve the rest of their things.